Meet the ride hailing company crossing cultures to lead a truly global brand
In this episode of The CMO Show, we meet Tim Farmer, Head of Brand Marketing at DiDi, an app-based transportation service.
Tim’s no stranger to crafting a brand that transcends linguistic and cultural boundaries to build stronger and authentic customer connections. He joined Mark to offer his tips on how APAC marketers can sharpen their cultural radar, reach new markets, and lead truly global brands.
Asia Pacific is a rich tapestry of traditions, preferences, and expectations that marketers must consider when running campaigns and growing a brand with a global mindset. But how do you tackle the gargantuan task of ensuring your content and message speaks to such a diverse audience?
Tim Farmer, Head of Brand Marketing at Didi, explains that brand guidelines will only take you so far, acting as more of a guiding principle on the path to deeper engagement.
"We can see how other markets have tried to speak across cultures, and I think in all good and bad marketing, there's a gem or a core or an idea, and it can fall over at so many points."
"Didi want to stand for certain things, we want to be good value, we want to be fun and optimistic, we want to be unique from Uber, but how we do that has to be through the local lens."
Makes sense so far, but what does it look like practically? Tim says being part of a global team, learning from other markets, and discovering messages with a universal truth has been key to Didi’s success.
Marketing is just developing a relationship with your consumers, right? So that's happening in all the other markets. They try things, it might have been a different incentive, there might have been a different context, or potentially in a different tone of voice.”
“So, there are things that we can learn and sure they don't all apply, but there are some things that are across globally true. For example - people love a good deal.”
Want to hear more? Hitch a ride with this episode of The CMO Show and get the insights you need to craft a cross-cultural, five star experience.
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Credits
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The CMO Show production team
Producers – Rian Newman & Pamela Obeid
Audio Engineers – Ed Cheng & Daniel Marr
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Transcript:
Hello, I'm Mark Jones, and you're listening to The CMO Show, a podcast made for and by marketing professionals and proudly produced by ImpactInstitute in partnership with Adobe.
The Asia Pacific region is a rich tapestry of traditions, preferences, and expectations, which present a unique challenge for marketers.
As globalisation accelerates, businesses in local markets must adapt their strategies to resonate with local nuances.
So how can you craft a brand which transcends or embraces linguistic and cultural difference?
It’s a challenge for many marketers as they attempt to understand the subtilities.
Mastering localisation isn't just about translation – it's about building authentic connections that drive business success.
On today's episode of The CMO Show, we welcome a special guest who shares success stories and cautionary tales about how their brand nailed localisation.
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Mark Jones here, and you're listening to The CMO Show.
Today, we are joined by Tim Farmer, Head of Brand Marketing at DiDi, an app-based transportation service.
He was previously marketing director at the Walt Disney Company, and he has more than 15 years of experience across multiple industries in the UK and Australia, including marketing strategy, media planning and buying, consumer insights and analytics, and commercial partnerships.
Only two months into his role, Tim has successfully developed and implemented the DiDi brand's marketing strategy; let me tell you, they are hitting it out of the park.
So, without further ado, let's get into it!
Mark Jones:
Tim, great to have you with us.
Tim Farmer:
Thank you very much for having me, Mark.
Mark Jones:
Now I’m pretty new to DiDi. I downloaded the app today, I must confess, so call me a late starter. Chinese for beep beep I’m told.
Tim Farmer:
I believe so, yes, that’s what I’ve been told to, so we’re happy to run with that. For the time being.
Mark Jones:
Tell me about the brand itself. What makes DiDi so unique in the marketplace when it comes to ride share and the experiences consumers have around that?
Tim Farmer:
Yeah, it’s an interesting one. I think I have actually recently joined the company myself, but I had been a customer for some time before this. And I suppose my observations as a customer first and foremost were that it’s very different to tell the difference between a ride in a DiDi and a ride in an Uber except for the price point at the end. More often than not I found that DiDi was significantly cheaper. So I was using it personally. There was an opportunity to come in and take on the brand lead role here and for me it was very exciting because I think the product is now and having used DiDi for a long time, I think it’s fair to say not always been, but certainly now very equitable to Uber in the category in terms of the experience. And there’s obviously one pretty unique differentiator, which is a lower price point. And I think in the current market with all of the broader macro issues affecting us. There’s a rare opportunity for us to take a brand that offers a strong service but doesn’t necessarily have a strong brand presence and build a brand. So as a marketer, that was almost too good to turn down, a blank canvas to try and build out a brand presence in Australia for DiDi the brand.
Mark Jones:
And I always love asking this question, the classic three things you can be two of, good, fast, cheap. So we’ve established the cheap bit fast or good.
Tim Farmer:
I’d say good is probably the honest answer. I mean obviously yeah, we’d like to be all of them, but certainly as good as Uber. Ride share itself is now two obviously main companies, Uber and DiDi but we obviously in this market we have most people own a car, public transport. We offer a really good service and our speed is improving all the time to a point where it’s very much comparable.
Mark Jones:
So that’s an interesting way to start thinking about it because challenger brands have to interpret the global messages and they have to figure out how to keep that dynamic alive. So there’s that global positioning and then there’s the local conditions that you are referring to, whether it’s the weather or transport or I guess cultural nuances. Give us a quick take on how you’ve thought about that. That must be part of the appeal for you and taking on the role.
Tim Farmer:
It is, and I think, I’m sure we will talk about this quite a lot in the next half hour or so, but I think the main thing for me coming in was really trying to get an understanding from the global business and head office whether this role and the challenge here was to develop a local brand with regional global approval or whether it was localising a global strategy. And I’m not saying there’s a wrong or right, but I had a strong preference for having come from a brand where we were localising to our best stability global strategy, the opportunity to build a local brand, which is what the DiDi broader businesses aligned around. We are the only English speaking market across the globe, and so there is permission to test and learn there. So yeah, I suppose the nuance really in that is more of an internal than an external one around kind of aligning on expectations and knowing where you’re going from the start. And so that was probably the starting point of all of this.
Mark Jones:
Now what have you brought to this from Disney because it’s not too long ago and I think you just made reference to that. So the experience was being able to create an Australian flavour for want of a better term of the Disney brand, is that right? What was that like?
Tim Farmer:
Yeah, it was correct and I think the leadership, local leadership at Disney very passionate about being a local brand for Australians. I think the thing I learned most about my time there is the power of brand. That it is one of the world’s most powerful and influential brands across many demographics and many different backgrounds. We’re talking about cultural backgrounds today. I think it certainly resonates across the spectrum of the Australian population. And so definitely one thing that I’ve come across understanding the power of brand and hopefully have had some practice and experience at building and contributing to the success of that brand.
Mark Jones:
What do you think makes a powerful brand? What are the elements? what are the core elements of a powerful brand?
Tim Farmer:
I think authenticity. I think one of the great tasks for a marketer is to understand where you are and what you want to be. And I think a lot of us are really good at that. I think sometimes we don’t want to look at what people think of us. And for me, the best marketers are the ones that are able to plot the gap however large it is between what we are and what we want to be, but maybe what people perceive of us. I mean I think at DiDi it’s really interesting. I think there’s a perception probably at the moment and when we see this through some brand health tracking that Uber arguably offers a perception that they’ll offer a stronger product. All of our data would suggest on most of our metrics, it’s very comparable in terms of wait times, time it takes to accept a ride. And so one of the things is there’s often a lag between who you are and what people think you are. So I think if we start telling, we can tell people till we’re blue in the face that we’re just as good, but the proof in the pudding is to obviously start demonstrating that through experience and trying to create ways to cut through that.
Mark Jones:
It’s interesting, I imagine just two months in, getting a feel for a different organisation and you make reference to perception gap. What are the essential lessons that you’re learning so far? If you just think about your peers and the listener who might be in a similar role, what are the essential things to be mindful of at this point in your journey?
Tim Farmer:
Well I think one of the things I’ve been very conscious of and luckily have some trusted mentors across the industry, and they’ve all said very similar things, is to use a cliche, which is the worst thing to do as a marketer, but I’m going to do it, is Rome wasn’t built in a day. there have been some instances where I think my thoughts coming in as a customer are now validated as a marketer. And so there are things that we can instantly tackle, but there’ve been other areas where I’ve been really surprised. For example, the wait time being almost negligible between the two services. Definitely my perception was that you waited longer for a DiDi. So for me, again, that’s a marketing challenge, it’s not a product challenge. So I think that’s exciting opportunity for us. I didn’t realise that we have a quarter of the market in terms of market share. It’s probably bigger than I had anticipated coming in. And so yeah, I think the big lesson when you’re starting a new role is certainly have your hypotheses and your theories around what you might do and be very sure about those, but make sure you can back them up with some robust data points to kind of interrogate that and stress test that before you let the wider public do that for you. I think that would be a rash move.
Mark Jones:
So I really like that, you’re in that research phase, validating what’s real and what’s perceived. Are there any gaps in the data side of things? For example, any other metrics for quality or speed?
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Tim Farmer:
I think there’s a reasonably robust data set. Certainly I think, and this was true in my previous role as well, working on a streaming brand is I think one of the things I want to seek to understand better is, my experience is there is often a disconnect between actual behaviour and claimed behaviour. And so what we have endless reams of is understanding how people are using our service. When, where, pickups, drop off, all of the data you would expect to have within the service. What I think is really important is to understand that step before and after in terms of what’s motivating the ride in general from a category perspective. And again, I’d imagine there’s a pretty obvious answer to that, but we can validate that quite quickly if there’s some brand health tracking. But what motivates you to ride with DiDi versus Uber? And the benefit of doing that is one, hopefully you start from closer to the truth of the consumer’s belief of you, but you can start to track how effective you are at changing them, which ultimately when you are building a brand and it takes time, you need, again, I use a ride share pun, comfort stops, comfort breaks along the way to check in with broader stakeholders, particularly non-marketing stakeholders to give them a view that things are moving in the right direction because it’s rarely, I mean if it does, amazing, but it very rarely translates to the end result coming right through the funnel in a day or two. So I think that’s the task and that’s where data can be really helpful and particularly for non-marketers in your organisation. It gives them comfort.
Mark Jones:
I think those gaps or the differences in beliefs are really fascinating and I think quite key to understanding the APAC perspective. Do you have any data points around China versus Japan versus Australia, for example, in customer expectations or beliefs that are starting to form your thinking?
Tim Farmer:
I think I knew this coming in but not specific to this category perhaps is how unique Australia is, particularly when placed within the APAC region. In the rideshare category, we are comparatively expensive to other markets. We have very high safety standards here and expectations from our consumers. the majority of people own cars, the public transport system is strong, you’re reasonably safe walking or catching public transport at most times compared to probably some of the markets around the world. And what that means is behaviour’s different. In other markets we see that the primary use for rideshare is the commute, where for us it’s much more of a social behaviour. You can guess where Australians predominantly use rideshare and it would tend to be Friday and Saturdays and particularly in the evenings. Because they don’t need us to go about their day. So we have to create an incentive or a want or reducing kind of complexity type. It is very much a once scenario.
Mark Jones:
And that’s why your story’s so fascinating for all these reasons. What have you found have been a challenge around firstly discovering this data, you referenced that, but thinking through some of the other linguistic and cultural boundaries and issues that you’re going to come up across in the APAC region?
Tim Farmer:
Yeah, I think it’s funny. I think as I say, we’re the only English market and so I think that’s great in the sense there’s an appetite permission to learn, but even in this market we have two audiences. We have riders and drivers. And so from a rider perspective, you think about, I mean I’m a pom, just declaring that for everyone originally, I’ve been here a time.
Mark Jones:
I did pick that up.
Tim Farmer:
But the Australian vernacular is unique and I think in marketing, my favourite example of that is I believe we are still the only country in the world that are allowed to change the lettering under the golden arch to Macca’s, everywhere else is McDonald’s. Because it is colloquially known as Macca’s here. And so I think we talk in a different way. We as a nation of people have a different tone of voice. We are more playful and provocative, self-demeaning at times, which again is interesting because as a challenger brand that becomes important and we’re not a challenger brand in other markets. So from a rider perspective, there are, we are taking a different approach to what we have in other markets. But then to flip that, we have drivers who are from various cultural backgrounds and so not just linguistically there are complexities. For many of our drivers, English is a second language and so we have to make sure communication is really clear for our drivers. But there are cultural things like Chinese New Year and we’ve just come out of Ramadan. I was talking to some of the guys around the office today and when India played Pakistan in a World Cup game in Australia, that has a dramatic effect on our ability to service the demand for rides. There are things that potentially you don’t always think about as a marketer making sure that your supply can hit the demand. And so it is a constant learning curve that we go through. But yeah, I think we’re really lucky to have the support of our APAC colleagues in exploring that.
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Mark Jones:
So when it comes to working with the product side of the business, I’m assuming then that you can change the words, the language, the tone as you’re referring to there in the app, really to take that holistic look at the experience as well. How does that work just practically speaking?
Tim Farmer:
Yeah, I mean it’s very close. It is a lean team, which is I think certainly a change from a big company like Disney to come to DiDi. It’s very much in almost like a, still operates almost like a tech startup, so you just have to lean backwards and talk to the product guys. I mean it’s a boring answer, but very easy to do. I think one of the great things I’m finding about working here locally, globally is there’s a humility to what you do and don’t know. And so I think there’s an acceptance that if you’re not a marketer, I’m here to help with marketing and how we might talk to consumers. And in the same way I don’t understand the tech back end well enough to the level those guys do.
Mark Jones:
What else are you learning that could be useful for marketers to help shape their cultural radars and thinking about the customer engagement side of things, you’ve obviously got this broader remit for Australia, New Zealand, you’re working with the other marketing people across the region, right?
Tim Farmer:
Correct. The region and the world. Yeah.
Mark Jones:
Tell me about that. What are you learning that can help people figure out how to customise, to adapt, to effectively get on the same page but understand there are completely different drivers that one message isn’t going to work well everywhere?
Tim Farmer:
Yeah, I think it’s interesting. I think in many ways a lot of the things we’ve come up with in terms of the core essence of the idea, the concept or the kind of rationale behind why we might try a different thing, talk to a specific audience has in some guys been trialled elsewhere in the world. So the language of that’s different, but for example, we test the price elasticity of the product around the world. One of the things we discussed very early on is how closely do we adhere to global brand guidelines? And it was, I think the best way to explain, it’s a bit like bumpers on a bowling lane in the sense that we want to stand for certain things, we want to be good value, we want to be fun and optimistic, we want to be unique from Uber, but how we do that has to be through the local lens. And so where the, I suppose interesting thing has come is that we can see how other markets have tried to do that and I think in all good and bad marketing there’s a gem or a core or an idea and it can fall over at so many points. And so whether that is the creative execution, the placement, the timing, there are so many factors that can obviously go into that. But there is something obviously within that that stood true if it’s a strong marketing strategy that we can pick up and learn and take within our market. And I think that’s been reasonably helpful.
Mark Jones:
Something that stands out to me that I think is quite fascinating is the idea that global teams are essential. So your relationships with your peers in other parts of the world, just at a human level, at a colleague level, I would’ve thought are critical. And at the same time, access to data would be the ideal pairing. So in other words, to be able to see the same set of data in different markets, so you can effectively sit at your desk and do your own research, but then have a relationship where you can query that in an open way with your colleague in China or South America or wherever it might be. So I guess that level of interrogation and learning and figuring this out as we go along seems to me to be at the heart of this localisation and really understanding what’s going on. Is that a fair reflection of what’s going on at the moment?
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Tim Farmer:
I mean, more broadly than us. I think that’s fair in my opinion. And I think the reason for that is product’s the same in every market in terms of what the product is, the product’s the product. And so the differences come in how that product fits within the category in your market, the broader kind of cultural context, the way you talk to people. And I suppose that is what probably that will be the test of me in this role, is my ability to take the learnings of that product which is more mature in other markets in the world. They have tried different incentives, different rewards, tested with different drives and barriers to see how hopefully to use my local experiences here in marketing teams to point out where there’s different.
we can see the differences in each market, which in itself is unique, but when there are similarities, we have the same barrier. There’s a very good chance the other markets have been trying to tackle that for some time. And so we can see what they’ve done in that market, can that be adapted? But you may interpret that different ways. For example, we track through a survey, a brand tracker, not actual behaviour people’s usage occasion. When they would use Uber, when they would use DiDi, they tend to use DD more for social occasions and they tend to use Uber for what I would say is probably more professional formal occasions. And that ties back to perceptions of the service and where punctuality, for example, is more important and where value might become more important.
Now you could try and tackle the professional side of things, improve your product and put comms and say, actually it’s just as good and we want more market share there. Or you could try and grow your social behaviour and still share there. Neither of those answers are wrong, but two different marketers will interpret that data in different ways and I suppose that would work different in different markets.
Mark Jones:
one of the insights there is that a common set of indicators allows you to compare apples and apples at least from a customer experience point of view, and then use that to interpret what’s going to work for you in the local market. I think the other aspect to this, and where I was heading was in marketing and certainly many of the conversations we’ve had on The CMO Show, we spend a lot of time thinking about our external activities. Strategy is one thing, and developing customising, but then we really want to talk about the campaigns and what we put in market and what it did, and obviously all of that matters, but what I’m appreciating about your story is we haven’t really got to there yet. We are just thinking about the work that’s required as a leader inside an organisation to interpret what you are seeing through a marketing lens, add that value, build the relationships, I think is as much of a skill and a challenge for you as is all the fun stuff with the campaigns, right?
Tim Farmer:
I completely agree with that. And not just here, but in previous companies as well. I think the problem comes back to what we were discussing a little bit earlier is what makes a brand and its authenticity and the gap between what you are and what you want to be and facing that up. And so if you can’t sell your vision internally, the product isn’t going to stack up. We can short-term grab consumer’s attention very easily.
And one of the things I’ve really enjoyed about here is the amount of times I hear the phrase slow and sustainable growth. So we are actually ruling out ideas where we think that would create spike of demand and essentially inject revenue into the business, but then either go back to normal or actually create a dip in the following measurement period, which not talking to my other friends, and I’m sure lots of the people hopefully listening would relate to that, is that we’re often creating short-term activity to create spikes and not thinking about the long-term output. And I think that’s where the internal piece is really important because you might have to say to your CFO, yeah, the month end number may look better, but the following month is going to. And I think that comes through stakeholder alignment, building out key metrics that can be shared across the business and taking people on that journey.
Mark Jones:
And so it’s the classic brand building versus driving demand and it sounds like there’s a lot of brand building to be done. You’ve touched on the narrative and I guess the perception and how people feel. And it sounds to me like you’ve got a lot more to do there before you start throwing out coupons and other short-term incentives, right? And if so, what’s on the radar for that?
Tim Farmer:
Yeah. we do play in a discount market that the ride share category is tracking its discounts each week. So that is I suppose the here and now of the commercial reality. But what we won’t be doing is pushing that sort of messaging into a broader far reaching brand environment. I think you do need to keep money coming in the door. And so you do need those levers. I think where it goes wrong is when that becomes your brand. I was very lucky actually when I first moved to Australia and I had very little to do with this, but I worked for a media agency and I was as a very junior media agency employee, lucky enough to work on Kmart at the time when Caruso had just come from McDonald’s to Kmart.
And that business was really, really struggling, the weakest of top three. And he did a number of things to improve that brand, but one of the things he did is he stopped sales and established an everyday low price proposition in that we’ll just always be the lowest price. So we don’t need to drive sales. And I mean at the time, probably too junior to notice, was taking it all in. But I look back now as one of the most valuable lessons of my career, but not only that, you talk about internal stakeholder management in a retail business. Trying to get retailers off the drug of monthly sell through. I still kind of not sure how he did it, but I think that’s one of the best examples in this market of how brand building can be so beneficial.
Mark Jones:
There is an interesting parallel for you now to that story isn’t there in terms of the promos, the sales culture, and I think what do you do if all they know is DiDi is cheap? There’s got to be a different value. So there’s got to be something else to hang onto.
Tim Farmer: I think the first thing, and this is what we’re trying to find out is, and not necessarily Australians, does the ride share user know? Does the category customer know that we are cheaper? So I think there is a need to establish that, but that will run, you can establish that, but then you need to develop value and a brand raising beyond that because I think what potentially they’ve done to this point and we’ve done to this point is look at what Uber do and copy what we think is working well to a degree. And I think a lot of brands do this. They take the leader in the category and they seek to chase them. And I think the challenge of that is just end up being at best a close number two because you are following.
So that’s the definition of following. I think one of the reasons DiDi pays its drivers more and charges riders less is that would resonate at the moment is this idea that what if we want money to be in Australian’s pockets rather than ours? That idea of that’s why we’ll keep fares low and that’s why we’ll pay our drivers a higher proportion of the fair than our competitors.
So I think there’s a differentiator there that we are kind of toying around with and how we position that to consumer may not be as blunt as that, but I think that’s something for us to think about. I think the other thing that I know and don’t need the research to prove is I don’t think there’s anyone who books an Uber or a DiDi because they like to take a trip in a car. So they’re going to a destination, and I think potentially where we could differentiate from Uber a little bit, and this is not a sledge at Uber, I think they’re probably the benchmark for marketing in Australia at the moment is they’ve done a great job of promoting the strength and variety of their services. But I also think there’s a view that could be taken that most people are taking that it’s a utility to get you to something more fun.
And so perhaps we are saving money for you to spend more at what you want to spend on. I think it’s like airlines, right? Where my company’s paying for me to fly, I’m happy to go in one of the predominant airlines, but if it’s on my own dollar, I’m happy to fly one of the budget airlines so I can spend more on the hotel, restaurants, bars when I get there. So I think there’s a few insights that we could lean into, but we would seek to differentiate ourselves and provide some meaning beyond just value in the way that Kmart has done, in the way that ALDI the supermarket has done an excellent job at. So it can be done, it’s been seen across other categories.
Mark Jones:
Yeah, one thing that comes to mind is the classic Aussie notion of the fair go. And I wonder whether that might resonate. Actually where our office is, I’m actually looking square down on a Toyota dealership and I think there’s an interesting parallel with that brand because they have become intricately linked with the Australian landscape, but that is an international, well it’s a Japanese brand and an international brand that has done a similar thing to what you are doing. So I wonder in that context, for the listener who might be either curious about or working in a multinational brand, what would be the lessons and I think the specific approaches that you’ve got to take if you like the top three to five tips you should be marching through when it comes to developing this type of strategy.
Tim Farmer:
Yeah, I mean Toyota’s a really interesting one. I think I’ve worked on car brands in a previous life in an agency world and I know that Toyota’s strategy was, and actually global strategy, was find the things that the locals love most in the market and surround it, hence the AFL NRL sponsorships that they’ve entered into and some of the other activity they’ve taken in market grassroots sport, and they do very, very well. So I think that’s a great example of the idea of the bumpers on the bowling lane that I was talking about earlier, that there’s a kind of global approach but localise that. So I think they do that very well. I suppose more broadly for someone in a similar position, and I say this, this is what I think and this is what I’m hoping will be the truth as we go and some of the land. I think ask questions, be the idiot in the room.
Most importantly I think it gains trust, if you can ask the question, which is important. And then I think the most important thing comes back to probably your very first question is know your destination. Be really clear on why that’s your destination and make sure you’ve got key stakeholders in the parts of the business that you need to bring that to life, aligned and clear on the path and the metrics that will get to that. And I think that is probably true of all businesses and the difference between successful ones and ones that find it a bit harder, to be honest with you.
Mark Jones:
Well Tim, I got to say I do love me a good rideshare pun, knowing you’d estimate something. I see what you did there.
Tim Farmer:
I’m disappointed. I should have put more in, but that’s fine. I’ve snuck a couple in, so I’m happy with that.
Mark Jones:
You’ve been very generous with your time and your insights and I particularly like the way that you are approaching these early days at DiDi. It seems to me quite a humble but really strongly curious approach and I think that’s going to stand you in good stead. So all the best for the journey ahead. Let’s stay in touch and all the best with being that successful challenger brand as well. So Tim, thanks for your time.
Tim Farmer:
Thank you so much for the platform. I really appreciate you speaking to me. I’m really grateful. Thank you.
Mark Jones: It’s a pleasure.
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Mark Jones:
That was Tim Farmer, Head of Brand Marketing at Didi.
Tim underscores the importance of developing a sharper cultural radar to enhance local customer engagement. It is about aligning expectations internally and having clear direction from the outset.
Thanks to Tim for sharing his practical advice on today’s episode of The CMO Show, which was made possible by our partnership with Adobe.
Thanks for tuning in, and we look forward to having you with us next time.